Thursday, February 22, 2024

Diary of Malvina S. Waring, Tuesday, February 14, 1865

Such a day! It was like "a winnowing of chaos." Very little work was done at the Treasury Department in the midst of such excitement and confusion. We are to remove at once to Richmond, and I am told Colonel Joseph Daniel Pope, Mr. Jamison, and many of the employees of the printing establishment, have already departed. I do not know if this be true; I hear too many contradictory reports for all of them to be true. One thing, however, appears to be quite true—Sherman is coming! And I never believed it before. This afternoon, we could distinctly hear firing in the distance, and at this writing (8.30 p. m.) we can see the sky arched with fire in the direction of the Saluda factory. Must I go with the department to Richmond? In such case, my parents will be entirely alone, Johnny having gone, also, to the front. Does this not clearly show the dire extremity to which we are reduced, when boys of sixteen shoulder the musket? There are other reasons why I should like to remain here to receive Sherman: it is high time I was having some experiences out of the ordinary, and if anything remarkable is going to happen, I want to know something about it; it might be worth relating to my grandchildren! Anyhow, it is frightfully monotonous, just because you are a woman, to be always tucked away in the safe places. I want to stay. I want to have a taste of danger. Midnight.—But I am overruled; I must go. My father says so; my mother says so. Everything is in readiness—my trunks packed, my traveling clothes laid out upon the chair, and now I must try to catch a little sleep. And then on the morrow—what? What will be the next stroke upon the Labensuhr? God only knows.

SOURCE: South Carolina State Committee United Daughters of the Confederacy, South Carolina Women in the Confederacy, Vol. 1, “A Confederate Girl's Diary,” p. 274-5

No comments: